You've reached your free article limit.

Become a Soccer America Pro member today to get complete website access to all articles and all discussions and receive all of Soccer America’s newsletters for just $2.91 for three months.

This premium subscription level includes Soccer America Daily, Soccer on TV, Soccer Talk, the Game Report and Soccer America Confidential. Soccer America Pro members may read, share and comment on all articles from these paid premium newsletters.

Your email address has been verified. Enjoy your free articles.

Players near-unanimous on strike action

[MLS] Following three days of negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement in New York, MLS President Mark
Abbott termed the talks as “productive” but L.A. Galaxy player rep Chris Klein insisted that the two sides “remain very far apart on
the major issues.” When asked if by voting overwhelmingly to strike unless a new CBA is negotiated the players might have convinced the owners of their solidarity, he said, “Let’s
hope so.”

Different news sources reported different vote totals on a strike action, but suffice it, the "yeas" pummeled the "nays" a few hundred to a handful.

Klein
participated in the meetings and rejoined his Galaxy teammates Thursday. “I won’t discuss any of the specifics regarding what we talked about the past few days,” he said, “but
let me just reiterate the players will not start the season without a new CBA in place.”

That stance eliminates two possibilities: (a) that MLS and the players the operate under
terms of the CBA that expired Feb 25, which MLS has offered to do; and (b) the players agree to play while the two sides continue to negotiate into the season.

The latter situation is
theoretically possible, according to Commissioner Don Garber.

“I don’t know if it’s important to get into the legality of
it, but in essence, the way the labor system works is when two sides can’t agree – well, the New York Police Department worked without a contract for seven years and they still came to
work every day and the city still paid them – the league can operate without an agreement,” said Garber over the weekend. “There are things that are very technical that happen when
you operate after the expiration of an agreement, but certainly we can operate and they can get paid to come to work until they reach a point where they decide not to do that.”

Players have stressed their concern about three main issues:

GUARANTEED CONTRACTS. Kansas City player rep Jimmy Conrad and Klein did
offer one specific condition the players would like to see removed: the contract guarantee date (in the case of last season, July 1) after which a player signed to a “semi-guaranteed”
contract on a team’s roster receives his full salary for the season.

“If they sign you, they should guarantee your contract for the whole season,” says Conrad. “If
they decide later they don’t want you, they can buy you out and cut you or try to trade or sell you. If they make a mistake, well, that can happen, but why doesn’t the league fine them or
punish them instead of the player? Why should we always take it in the shorts?”

Conrad doesn’t expect every player coming out of college to get a guaranteed deal right away,
but many veteran players don't have contracts fully guaranteed.

Klein, a veteran of more than a decade in the league, says he has had guaranteed years in contracts. When asked how many of
his years had been fully guaranteed, Conrad – an All-Star and Best XI selection several times over – replied, “Zero.”

The players contend that many players are cut
before the July 1 date, and left hanging in limbo for weeks or months while the team searches for alternatives – as per the European summer transfer window or other options – after which
he is waived, traded, or offered another contract for much less money. The team is permitted to extend the contract guarantee date short-term, with no recourse granted to the player.

FREE AGENCY. Under MLS rules, a team retains a player’s rights indefinitely within the league if it attempts to re-sign him, which in actual practice
means any offer – no matter its terms – is sufficient for this stipulation to kick in. The team retains the player's rights if the team and player don't reach an agreement or if player
chooses to move to a league outside MLS. The league does this to prohibit players from heading overseas and re-entering MLS as a true free agent.

“A team shouldn’t still have
a player’s rights after four years,” says Klein, in reference to Union defender Danny Califf, who left MLS after the 2005 season to play in Denmark.
As the league negotiated with his club, Midtjylland, to buy out his contract, the Union negotiated to, in effect, buy him from Houston. His rights were traded for allocation money.

“His rights were held by San Jose, which had moved to Houston, so Philadelphia had to work out a trade with them. He shouldn’t have to do that.”

Califf had made no
secret of his intention to go overseas and the year before, then-Galaxy coach Sigi Schmid had traded him to San Jose with that in mind.

UNILATERAL OPTIONS. Unilateral options that often comprise the final two years of the league’s standard four-year contract are also a point of contention. A
player’s rights can be retained if that option is exercised, but even if it is declined the club retains his rights. It can offer him a contract at a lower – in some cases much lower
– salary.

In line with the options are durations of contracts. Most contracts run at least four seasons, including the two option years which often contain very modest salary
increases that further limit a player’s ability to get more value for his services.

Contracts in some cases are re-negotiated at a higher salary, yet the league has final say on
what a team can offer regardless of how much a league rival might be willing to pony up.

Garber and Abbott contend this underpinning of the single-entity system enables MLS to control
salaries and is fundamental to the league’s viability. The players do not agree.

“At the end of the day, the deadline for when a deal has to get done is up to the
players,” said Garber last weekend. “We’re not going to lock them out and we’re willing to play under the current rules, so they’re going to have to decide what their
move is. Our hope is that we reach an agreement before the start of the season. I never thought we’d get there in the weeks right after MLS Cup, but now we’re getting super-close to the
first game.”

Klein agrees with that last point, if not much else.

“The window is getting smaller,” he said in reference to the March 25 opener at Qwest
Field matching last year’s expansion sensation, Seattle Sounders FC, and newcomer Philadelphia Union. “We want to reach an agreement, but we can’t let things continue as they
are.”

Thank God the Players Union is talking with some guts. The situation then(NASL) and now(MLS) has few similarities. The MLS ownership including its new England representatives in the "RAZOR" have a monopoly on cheap. The MLS currently will have only 3-4 representatives on THE US National Team at the World Cup. Why good players leave, is the working and salary conditions in the MLS are substandard. The players are not asking for free spending. How can a young MLS player develop his game on a four year 30,000 per year salary. American soccer fans are willing to pay two-three times the ticket prices charged by MLS teams for games that do not require "No DOZ" before entry. Amazingly enough our local entry in this semi-pro league that Garber and Abbott are calling a major league have been able to operate under the salary cap of 2.3 million per year. MAJOR LEAGUE WHAT?

What happened to the magic mediator who was supposed to bring the parties together and solve all of this? I have sympathy with the players and I am tired of seeing great young prospects jump ship because they are being offered ridiculous salaries like $30K but it will be a disaster if the MLS season does not start on time and the repurcussions will be felt for a long time to come so, come on guys, get in a locked room and stay there until you reach an agreement!!

The single entity status has been affirmed legally and so the MLS really has no reason to back down... the players main gripe has to be that until midseason, even long term players really can't be seen as set at their teams... if the MLS continues to not really develop their own nor spend the money necessary to maintain a reserve league or at least a connection with the USL to develop it's talent it will continue to lose not just it's "Star" players but many of their journeyman players to third tier European leagues... and when those players see playing in front of Danish or Norwegian fishermen rather than playing in MLS... well the players aren't the only ones with a problem... this league likes to call itself "Major League"... but it's actions so often make a mockery of that moniker.